Sunday, July 16, 2017

The self-righteous rage of the Left

Hamburg last week was described as looking like a war zone after
masked rioters ransacked shops, torched cars and built barricades which they
then set alight.

The rioters were protesting against the G20 summit, although
what noble purpose was served by looting shops, burning cars and making off
with stolen ATM machines wasn’t clear.

Nonetheless we’re expected to believe that the protesters had
more high-minded motives than the G20 leaders, whom the protesters insist are all
irredeemably venal and corrupt.

Meanwhile, thousands of kilometres away, a violent mob
stormed the Venezuelan parliament and attacked opposition MPs, some of whom
suffered broken ribs and head injuries.

In both instances, the perpetrators were from the Left: in
Hamburg, anarchists, communists and environmental activists; in Caracas, supporters
of the socialist president Nicolas Maduro.

The Left has a problem here. Political violence in the past
has often been associated with the far Right, but these days it’s the
self-righteous rage of the Left that presents by far the greater threat to
democracy.

It manifests itself not just in outright violence, but also
in the howling down of any opinions that challenge leftist orthodoxy.
Alarmingly, this intolerance of dissent has taken hold in universities, once
regarded as bastions of free speech and critical thought.

This process has been hastened by the rise of identity
politics, which aggrieved minority groups use as a platform for demanding
special treatment, and by the fashionable dogma of post-modernism, which dismisses
reason and truth as artificial constructs that serve the interests of ruling
elites.

Post-modernism has the enormous advantage that it can’t be
challenged on a rational basis, since it rejects reason and logic as tools of
white privilege. Essentially, it seeks to pull the rug out from under all the
accumulated knowledge and learning that forms the basis of Western
civilisation.

Being a generally moderate society, New Zealand has yet to
be exposed to the worst excesses of leftist fundamentalism, such as the
incidents in Hamburg or Caracas. But that’s not to say it can’t happen here.

We see a milder form whenever activists try to block entry
to a conference they disapprove of, or disrupt proceedings by shouting or
waving placards. What they’re doing is interfering with other people’s right to
say and hear things they don’t like.

We see it when they stage a march or a sit-down protest in
the middle of the street. They are asserting that their inflated sense of
grievance takes precedence over the right of other New Zealanders to go about
their business.

We also see it when protesters throw mud or a rubber dildo
at a politician they don’t agree with, as happened to Don Brash and Steven
Joyce, or smear a lamington on his head (as in the case of former ACT MP John
Boscawen).

For all the leftist hysteria about the Right, we never hear
of conservative protesters resorting to such aggressive acts of intolerance. Invariably,
it’s the angry Left.

We see it too in the use of language designed to demonise
opponents and de-legitimise dissent. On a recent Facebook post, Maori activist
Joe Trinder described the lobby group Hobson’s Pledge as a “hate group” – the far
Left’s standard term of denunciation for any group that threatens to stand in
the way of the identity politics agenda.

Hobson’s Pledge is the group founded by Brash to promote the
concept of equality before the law, regardless of ethnicity. This is hardly a novel
or dangerous idea; on the contrary, it’s in line with basic democratic
principles.

But it makes Brash the enemy of people like Trinder, who advocates
special treatment for Maori. So he calls Hobson’s Pledge a “hate group”,
thereby putting it on the same level as the Ku Klux Klan and the Nazi Party.

This is a gross and offensive distortion of what Hobson’s
Pledge stands for, but that’s unlikely to worry Trinder. It also implies that
Brash is some sort of reincarnated Joseph Goebbels, although there’s no
evidence to indicate there’s a racist bone on his body.

Trinder’s Facebook post gave his followers licence to
unleash a torrent of abusive obscenities against Brash. Some threatened
violence; others called for Hobson’s Pledge billboards to be torn down. So much
for free speech and diversity.

There’s room in the political system for both Trinder and
Brash. The difference is that Brash doesn’t try to bully his opponents into
silence, threaten them or subject them to vile personal abuse. So why do
Trinder and his followers think it’s acceptable?

6 comments:

A very acute analysis of what we are seeing around the world and serves to alert many of us to be wary of supporting some of the groups. One of the questions might be though, are not many of the violent rioters really only hoods looking for a cause?Another first class column from Karl.Paul R

"Post-modernism has the enormous advantage that it can’t be challenged on a rational basis, since it rejects reason and logic as tools of white privilege."

A couple of comments. 1 - I will use reason and logic as long as I draw breath, and just because some braindead lefties say that those things are "tools of white privilege" does not make it so! Opinion does not equal FACT.

2 - Post-modernism (and leftism) are both utter bollocks.

Reason and logic have existed since the age of the great Greek philosophers. They are tools which can be used by *anyone*.The same goes for mathematics and music.

To infer otherwise is to be raaaaaaaa-cist! (Hypocrisy has never bothered lefties).

If reason and logic are "tools of white privilege", then in the same vein it can be said that "ignorance and stupidity are tools of the braindead Left".

The Free expression people in USA have been largely advising allowance to the the Media and the regressives to their inevitable self implosion. But that is measured with the belief of some that they are at the beginning of a civil war over there.

After the Manchester horror, there have been low key references to 'Private Enterprise'. This is all low key of course, because You tube, Facebook and twitter do not favour suggestions of violence from other than the left.

What an inane diatribe against a straw man enemy. You have grouped all people who don't agree with you into an enemy "the left" and tried to show that are organised into some sort of global hegemony. If this is the way you really think, you should see a therapist.

What is this groups doctrine? Can you point it out? No? That is because this group does not have one, because the group does not exist. You have created an enemy that you can deride for your own personal glee.

For instance "Post-modernism has the enormous advantage that it can’t be challenged on a rational basis, since it rejects reason and logic as tools of white privilege.". So you equate any form of leftist thinking with postmodernism when the two are only linked tenuously. Rethink your entire idea. Sure there some left leaning people are deniers of truth, reason and logic, but the same could be said for the far right supporters of Trump, for instance, who constantly deny truth, reason or logic. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/06/23/opinion/trumps-lies.html

As an example, "the left", by and large, accept human induced climate change based on scientific evidence. They use truth, reason and logic to accept man is changing our climate. The far right deny the truth, are completely illogical and ignore the science. If postmodernism, as you say, is only the domain of "the left" then it would be "the left" who deny AGW and the right who support it. Is this the case?

There is no "leftist fundamentalism". There are disaffected people who are showing their dissatisfaction with the current right leaning world governments. When there are predominantly left leaning governments, surprise surprise, the right come out in droves as they are then the disaffected. It appears you want to ignore this and illustrate that it is only ever left wing anarchist groups which ever use violence or social/economic disruption as a form of protest.

So lets just forget about all the right wing climate change denying farmers who clogged up Wellington streets in protest of an emissions tax. Lets just ignore people like Eric Rudolph/Timothy McVeigh/ or the Charlston Church shootings, perpetrated by those who clearly had far right beliefs. Or the violence at the right wing Trump rallies which Trump helps to incite by encourage violence against those that don't agree with him. These don't exist as "... we never hear of conservative protesters resorting to such aggressive acts of intolerance". There is an entire wikipedia page that refutes your assertions by listing all of the violence perpetrated by the far right! https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Right-wing_terrorism

I recommend you reanalyse your entire thinking on the matter. You have become guilty of exactly what you accuse others of being guilty of - ignoring truth, reason or logic.

About Me

I am a freelance journalist and columnist living in the Wairarapa region of New Zealand. In the presence of Greenies I like to boast that I walk to work each day - I've paced it out and it's about 15 metres. I write about all sorts of stuff: politics, the media, music, wine, films, cycling and anything else that piques my interest - even sport, though I admit I don't have the intuitive understanding of sport that most New Zealand males absorb as if by osmosis. I'm a former musician (bass and guitar) with a lifelong love of music that led me to write my book 'A Road Tour of American Song Titles: From Mendocino to Memphis', published by Bateman NZ in July 2016. I've been in journalism for more than 40 years and like many journalists I know a little bit about a lot of things and probably not enough about anything. I have never won any journalism awards.